Malegaon blast inquiry should be impartial: Advani

New Delhi, Nov 25 (IANS) Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani Tuesday said he had no objection to the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) investigating the Malegaon blast but the inquiry should be impartial and professional.Addressing an election rally in Delhi’s Rithala constituency Tuesday evening, Advani said: “The affidavit by Sadhvi Pragnya Singh (arrested for the bombings that she was tortured in custody by the ATS is alarming. Anyone who reads the affidavit will be shocked.”

The BJP leader said the ATS had not found any substantial evidence in the case so far. “I have no problem in the case being investigated, but it should be impartial,” he said. He addressed two other rallies in the city late Tuesday evening.

The public meeting was attended by about 6,000 people in the constituency’s Buddh Vihar phase-2 locality. The BJP’s sitting legislator Kulwant Rana is contesting for this seat. Delhi goes to polls Nov 29 to elect 70 legislators.

Advani said that the central government was disallowing the hanging of Afzal Guru in the parliament terror attack case while the same Congress party’s govenment did not object to capital punishment to the assailants of the late prime minister Indira Gandhi.

He said the Congress-led government was incapable of combating terrorism and only the BJP could tackle it.

Advani took a dig at the Congress also for spiralling prices of essential commodities and said that when the BJP was leading the central government under prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee it effectively checked inflation.

“Prices of everything, from vegetables, essential commodities, to cement and iron, had increased and the government was unable to do anything about it,” he said.